Monday, October 14, 2013

1. —“Unity Convention”—Woodstock, NY—May 15 - 28, 1921

The Joint Unity Convention was attended by 60 delegates, 30 each from the United Communist Party and the (old) Communist Party of America. The report of the CEC of the United Communist Party was delivered by Executive Secretary Alfred Wagenknecht ["Paul Hole"], who related the UCP's organizational history and emphasized the group's commitment to unity and willingness to submit to the solutions proposed by the Comintern. The report of the CEC of the old Communist Party of America was delivered by Charles Dirba ["C. Dobin"], who defended the group's Federations structure emphasized his group's commitment to building an effecttive revolutionary organization and a commitment to propagate the idea of the inevitability armed insurrection amongst the workers. Both of these lengthy reports illustrate well the history and differing concerns of each of these underground organizations.

The delegates haggled over details of merger, a constitution, and a program for two weeks before finally coming “to a unanimous agreement on every essential point.” There was a great deal of unanimity on programmatic issues, but negotiations over the constitution to establish the form of the organization were met with a series of party-line votes. Eventually, a negotiations committee consisting of five members from each side, worked out a compromise, the formation of a Central Executive Committee containing five members from each party—to which were deferred the bitterly divisive matters of the district structure and paid party organizers.

[fn. Official Bulletin of the Communist Party of America (Section of the Communist International), no. 1 [May 1921], pg. 1]